La Liga is a pantomime and Mourinho is the Villain

For those who do not have a clue nor an interest in football, I do apologise. You just have to bear with me for this post.

  

I have taken an interest in football as of late, more specifically the La Liga which is the Spanish equivalent of the Premier League. What makes La Liga great is because it has two of the best football teams in the world. What makes La Liga bad is because it has two of the best football teams in the world that pretty much dominate the league. The two teams are Real Madrid FC and Barcelona FC.

Every year without fail, one of the two teams wins the La Liga, which to be honest can be rather boring and as you would imagine they are fierce rivals. Now this rivalry could have just been contained in sport, but sadly it is also political. So to support one or the other brings about a perception (rightly or wrongly) about you.

Barcelona FC is the team of Catalonia, one of the regions in Spain that sought independence, wanting to be a country of its own. This ideology did not go down so well with the Spanish dictator Franco who wanted a united Spain and as a result the Catalans were persecuted. Real Madrid is of course, is in Madrid and was the team whom Franco supported. Even with that fact aside, Real Madrid is known for being ostentatious, spending serious cash on players who are referred to as Galácticos (superstars) based on the astronomical money spent on them.

This then brings about a massive polarisation of newspapers who, to be fair are extremely biased in Spain anyway. On one hand you have the socialists who abhor any connection with Franco singing praises to Barcelona FC. Whilst the centre right/right wing papers often celebrate Real Madrid. From a neutrals perspective, this would seem like a parody taking the focus off of football and bringing across a political agenda instead. You tend to get the pantomime effect with good team/bad team each day.

 Now, the plot has now thickened with the arrival of Mourinho. This guy is the embodiment of ego, but for a reason. He has pretty much won every domestic title in Europe bar Spain. He is now the coach for Real Madrid and has attracted a lot of controversy. If not for his underhand tactics, it would be for the mind games he enjoys playing with his opponent teams. There is one drama or another with this guy and he is now focusing his attention on the big match (El Clasico) where Real Madrid will be playing Barcelona which would ultimately dictate who will win the La Liga. He is subliminally taunting his rival to spice things up for the big match and the press are lapping it up.

You have got to love him, (or in the case of Catalonia) hate him for he is a man who knows which part to play and is enjoying it immensely.

The naming of a child

So I have been deliberating for a long time in what to call my online magazine and a suggestion that was close to being the official name lost out based on the fact that has already been taken (damn). The naming of any entity is obviously important as this is what will affectively define it. You wouldn’t name a cookery book for 40 year old housewives Gangsta Grillz, because quite frankly that would not go down so well. Perception of your product is very important to your demographic and it literally makes you or breaks you.

This made me think about the naming of a child and what are the implications the name has on the child as he/she grows older. This sadly made me think about being not only being black, but African and how having an African name can influence my life.

I have never (well not to my knowledge at least) been a victim of racial discrimination based on my ethnicity. Every contest I have been involved in has been fair or even biased in my favour. It is not unusual however, to hear of people who have been discriminated against based on their names. In the case of France whereby you were most likely to be turned down if you had a name of ethnic origin...

It does beg the question whether, for the sake of conformity to name a child a typical English/German/Spanish/etc name. This would at least help to overcome the first barrier of racial profiling, i.e. CV won’t automatically be thrown in the bin at glancing at Babafemi Adeyinka. What then happens when Babafemi, gets called for the interview? Even though the company where impressed with his CV, the racist perceptions held by the company would still stand and unless he really does performs  outstandingly well, would loss the job to his white counterpart.  

All in all, naming your child is a very personal choice and factors such as how society views the name or your ethnic group should not really matter. We unfortunately cannot eradicate racist views of some people but at least ensure that our children are brought up right to help debunk the stereotypical myths of our ethnic groups.